Founded in Oxford, England in 1984, Verse is an international journal that publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art. The print edition publishes portfolios of 20-40 pages, while the Verse site publishes book reviews and individual poems. Verse is edited by Brian Henry and Andrew Zawacki.

Monday, January 31, 2011

NEW! 3 poems by Stephanie Burns

Stephanie Burns

THREE POEMS

The Park

This is the day for a newfound gorgeous melody.I guess I don’t mean that.I guess I mean it’s a day that should be captured—This park, its strollers and one-handed bikers.Everything is just fractionally above disasterand that is, of course, why it works.Babies are creaking into their shouldersand dogs squat in painful contemplation.It’s the traffic that blesses this spot—the red-bottomed sailboats and two-tiered zephyrs. Airplanes and helicoptersand truant little islands straining to sea.Here, the hair before its first cut,she’s allowed cappuccino.There, two boys with sweaters tiedaround their necks.

Some buildings will slide off each other,but some will cling and pull us all down.We are all thinking about each other—caught in wonder—and the horizonconceals all the more obvious paint jobs.

Route 66 in Decent Light

Sweet-toothed drumbeat in the desert―billboardof dinosaurs and the cut-glass sky.

The mesas in their ignorance upendthe road out of town. Soldiers and nuns―

our scented headache. We are unscathedin the hungry nunnery of the soul. The food

is good. Tumbleweeds loop themselves into repeatbehind the only two cacti available.

My snaps pop and drop―no revelationin this swimming pool of sand. The chalk

of possible endings unfolds without glamor.The charge is only so high. Earlier flights

and histories are available upon request,as well as bathrobed blue skulls.

The ink and paste we’ve produced mixinto my coffee with subtle soft curls.

At the gas stations,we sew ourselves into each eye.

Several

This is not unlike what I wanted you to know.

I am saucy (drunk), fatigued, Talkative in the times we grasp for silence--the clumsy piano player in the red-lit bar at the back of your mind--all you never knew you always wanted.

I know all the neat linesin your gardens--the way you ordermemories (playground--hot dog--pretzel). I negotiate these sandboxes but these are not the secrets as I want them.

You flinch at me. I buy you presentsbut they dissolve at your harsh touch--so much burning paper. I keepto the middle of your thoughts,listening for the right instructions.is there something you want known?

You shrug at us, the world, yourself.You come to the part where you mustwalk a tightrope above yourselfand I just want you to knowI wasn’t going anywhere with that question.